


Eden's Eighth Day

by julien (julie)



Category: due South
Genre: Action/Adventure, Fade to Black, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1996-01-01
Updated: 1996-01-01
Packaged: 2020-09-26 22:29:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20397187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/julien
Summary: Ray seems obsessed with a young wannabe hood, and Fraser wonders if the problem is that Ray identifies with the young man and the life decisions facing him. In trying to work that out, Fraser uncovers more than he anticipated.





	Eden's Eighth Day

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes:** I refer to a character named Kerrie Montgomery in this. She appeared in another DUE SOUTH story of mine called IT’S HARD TO LOVE. However, nothing much else in this story relates to that one. She just embodies, for me, all of Ray’s ex-girlfriends and lost opportunities. 
> 
> The title of this story is borrowed from a Sarah McLachlan song called BACK DOOR MAN, in which Ray says to Benny, _All of your life you’ve lived in a world as pure as Eden’s sixth day_. 
> 
> **First published:** 1 January 1996 in my zine Espresso 1

# Eden’s Eighth Day 

♦

Benton Fraser put a hand to the Riviera’s dash, seeking a balance to the centrifugal force generated by one of Ray Vecchio’s speedier turns. ‘Where did you say we’re going, Ray?’

‘Court. Leo Milan is being sentenced today, they just called to tell me it’s all happening in…’ Ray consulted his watch, looking up again just in time to dodge around an old lady who’d been about to cross the street. Fraser offered her an apologetic smile as they sped past. ‘Ten minutes.’

‘I see. You have certainly taken a personal interest in this case.’

‘So?’ The Riviera raced through an intersection just as the light turned red.

Fraser let out a tiny sigh. ‘May I ask why? I consider it commendable that you treat a mugging so seriously, but I understand Lieutenant Welsh is of the view that your interest in this case is excessive when compared to other matters in your workload.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘The victim wasn’t seriously hurt, though of course you can’t underestimate the fear and anguish which a crime of this nature causes. Most of the money and the credit cards were recovered. The perpetrator was an eighteen-year-old who has committed a number of crimes, though they have been petty in nature. Why have you been working so hard on this case rather than others?’

‘I wanted a conviction on this one,’ the cop said firmly. ‘I’ve got that. Now I want Milan to do time.’

‘Really?’ Fraser turned to stare at his friend. ‘Why?’

‘The kid’s got to learn his lesson.’

‘You sound… almost vindictive, Ray. What does Milan mean to you?’

‘I know him, I know him and his gang friends, I grew up with kids just like them. They’re going to dig themselves in deeper and deeper unless someone teaches them a lesson.’

‘But I have found that spending time in jail tends to confirm a choice of a life of crime, rather than changing a person’s mind.’

Ray grimaced, threw the Riviera round a corner a little faster than necessary, and parked just down the road from the courthouse. ‘He’s going to learn his lesson, and if he needs to do that the hard way, then that’s what he has to do. First time he’s been tried as an adult, but we got his juvenile record admitted – that’s almost unheard of, you know. Leo Milan is going to do time.’

‘I see.’ Fraser was still frowning as he walked into the courtroom at Ray Vecchio’s side. The cop was tense, and a little excited. They sat on the front bench in the public gallery behind the prosecution table, and waited through the preceding case.

‘The State of Illinois and Leonardo Milan,’ the clerk finally called, and he quoted the case number.

The convicted man was led from the holding cells that were situated below the courtroom, joining his defence lawyer at the table to Fraser’s left. Milan seemed perfectly at ease, shaking his lawyer’s hand, looking at everyone around him, and making himself comfortable once he sat down. A few moments passed as the judge and the clerk shuffled paperwork. Fraser watched as Ray caught the eye of the prosecuting attorney, and nodded as if in friendly complicity. She looked at him, her face a little stony, perhaps conscious of maintaining a professional demeanour.

Ray exchanged a confident glance with Fraser, and then looked across at Milan. A long moment before the young man turned to meet Ray’s fierce gaze. Milan remained easy, matching and perhaps bettering the cop’s confidence. ‘That stupid little moron,’ Ray muttered, shaking his head, ‘he is going to have to learn.’

‘Would the defendant rise,’ the clerk asked at last. Milan and his lawyer did so.

‘I’ve carefully considered this matter,’ the judge said. ‘I’ve taken into account the fact that Mr Milan has already served two weeks in custody, and has been of good behaviour while on bail. I hereby sentence him to perform one hundred hours of community service over the next three months.’

‘What!’ Ray said, loudly enough to gather everyone’s attention. He seemed to be the most surprised person in the courtroom.

The judge continued regardless: ‘Don’t let me see you in here again, Mr Milan. Next case.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ the cop was muttering. He stood as the next flurry of lawyers and clients replaced the current group. Milan was shaking his lawyer’s hand again, smiling as if this outcome had never been in doubt.

The prosecuting attorney paused by Ray long enough to observe, ‘Can’t win them all, Detective.’ And then she was gone, striding down the aisle to the double doors. The clerk was calling for quiet.

Ray was staring at Milan, perhaps too befuddled to be outraged. ‘This isn’t right,’ he said, and he pushed into in the aisle in front of Milan, headed for the doors at high speed. Fraser excused himself to the little crowd as he walked through, and followed Ray down to the parking garage, where the prosecuting attorney was throwing files and her briefcase into the backseat of a Porsche. ‘What happened?’ the cop was demanding. ‘We did everything right.’

‘So the judge was lenient,’ she replied. ‘Put it back in your pocket, Detective, you’re embarrassing yourself.’

‘Hey, we had this guy. He should be doing time.’

The woman gave Ray a hard glare – Fraser wondered if the attorney actually felt as outraged as the cop, or if she was angry at something else entirely. ‘Look, go sleep on it, Vecchio. You’re disappointed, but maybe this is the best outcome all round, OK?’ And she slid into the tiny car, turned the ignition, and sped off into the daylight that poured through the exit.

‘Damn it,’ Ray cried, twisting around as if looking for something to kick.

Fraser watched his friend for a long moment, still puzzled by the man’s reactions. ‘Let me buy you a coffee,’ the Mountie finally suggested. ‘We’ll have a coffee, Ray, and you can tell me why this case is so important to you, and then perhaps we can work out what to do next.’

‘There is no next. The guy’s free, he’s back on the streets.’

‘Come on,’ Fraser said. And he took Ray by the elbow and led him out of the garage. ‘I believe I noticed a coffee shop near where you parked your car.’

Ray was dull and resentful, but he went with Fraser, and sat across from him in a window booth. Fraser ordered espressos for both of them. A silence stretched before Ray finally muttered, ‘I did everything right.’

‘Yes, I believe you did.’

‘I presented the case well, I worked on my testimony so it was clear.’

Fraser nodded. ‘Your manner appeals to the jury, Ray. You are professional and yet they can identify with you.’

The man was so morose he didn’t seem to notice this compliment. ‘I didn’t swear once at the defence lawyer under cross-examination. I wasn’t even sarcastic. Well, not much.’

‘Not much at all,’ Fraser reassured him.

‘I worked hard with that damned attorney to make sure we had a watertight case. I did everything right, Fraser.’

‘Well, perhaps she was correct in saying this is the best outcome.’

‘No.’ The waitress brought their order over, and Ray stared into his coffee, wrapped both hands around the cup as if he needed the warmth. ‘Milan and his friends, they’re all about seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old. They’ve been mucking around until now, they got away with all kinds of stuff as kids, but they’re growing up. It’s getting serious. You know, I treated this seriously.’

‘Oh.’ At least one part of the puzzle slotted into place. ‘You treated this case as seriously as Leo Milan deserved. You felt you owed him that much.’

‘Yeah, I guess.’ Ray took a swallow of his coffee.

Fraser smiled a little, though it was lost on his friend. ‘Your motivation is to help this young man. Ray, I still don’t understand how your actions fit with that intention, but you want to help him.’

‘Did you see him when he heard what the sentence was? The little bastard looked cockier than I ever did. And that’s saying something.’

Suspecting that they were now nearing the truth of the matter, Fraser asked, ‘Do you identify with Leo Milan?’

‘I don’t know.’ Ray shrugged, gaze wandering restless. ‘Maybe. I know him, I know who he is. But, hell, he doesn’t look half as adorable as I did at that age.’

‘That must be true,’ Fraser said.

Ray just looked at him across the table. ‘Benny, sometimes I just can’t tell whether you’re being serious.’

Leaving the man to wonder, Fraser asked, ‘What were you like at eighteen?’

‘At eighteen? I had decisions to make. I’d wanted to be a cop since… since forever. You know, it was my childhood dream, I used to run around the neighbourhood shooting the bad guys.’ Ray was almost smiling at the memory. ‘Did you play cops and robbers when you were a kid? Mounties and robbers,’ he corrected himself.

Rather than risk losing Ray’s narrative flow by mentioning his own lonely childhood, Fraser nodded encouragement rather than agreement.

‘I always figured my Dad didn’t think I was good enough to be a cop, though. He didn’t seem to think I was good enough to be anything much. So one day he takes me aside and asks me what I want to be. I said I want to be a cop, like I’d always told him. And he says if I’m so interested in the law I should at least aim high and be a lawyer.’

Fraser lifted his eyebrows at this suggestion.

‘Yeah, I was surprised, too. That defence lawyer, I guess that’s the man my Dad wanted me to be. Said I had the gift of the gab, said I could negotiate, I could deal. He said I could lie. So I actually went to college for two years, and I did all right, but I was miserable as hell. It was hard work.’ Ray paused, and drank a mouthful of coffee. ‘Man, that’s strong. That’s good coffee.’

‘Yes, it is.’ Fraser lifted his cup, closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in the aroma, before taking a mouthful and savouring the dark taste of it.

Ray laughed. ‘I love how you do that.’

‘You went to law school for two years,’ Fraser prompted.

‘Yeah, well, I stood it as long as I could, and I really tried hard, but then I dropped out and became a cop. Which is what I wanted all along, but Dad – he was furious. So I had to be the best damned cop in Chicago just to try and prove myself to him. Didn’t succeed in that, either, but I got my Detective’s shield quicker than most.’ Ray shrugged. ‘I guess I wasn’t smart enough to be a lawyer.’

‘You were smart enough not to be,’ Fraser said. ‘That wasn’t the right career for you.’

‘You’re right, there was far too much thinking required. It took everything I had just to pass my classes those two years.’

‘Intelligence comes in many forms, Ray. You may not have the best attributes or skills to study for a law degree, or to be a lawyer, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t perfectly suited for other work. You are, after all, a very good police officer.’

Ray was grinning. ‘Oh, you liaison officers,’ he said. ‘You always know just what to say. So diplomatic, so full of flattery.’

‘It’s true, Ray, so my statement could not be described as flattery.’ Fraser drank the rest of his coffee, and then frowned across at his friend. ‘I’m afraid I still don’t quite understand your actions in relation to Leo Milan, if your intention was to help him. Surely you’d agree that jail is punishment rather than a chance for rehabilitation. But I don’t know the young man as well as you do – perhaps he is a hardened criminal already, and there is little hope for him.’

‘No, Milan isn’t that far gone yet,’ the cop admitted.

‘Then, is that how your father would have treated you? Would he have punished you too harshly? Would he have sent you to jail rather than help you rehabilitate through community service?’

Ray stared at him, eyes narrowing for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was very flat. ‘Don’t be telling me I’m acting like my Dad, Benny.’ A moment stretched, and then Ray continued, ‘Punishment, yeah, Dad was right into that. As for jail and applying the full extent of the law –’

‘I was speaking metaphorically, Ray.’

‘Well, I’m not.’ Ray leaned forward, arms folded on the table, and shoulders hunched to gain at least the illusion of privacy. ‘I’ve never told anyone this, OK?’

Fraser leaned forward, too. ‘Yes, Ray.’

‘You remember Frank Zuko? When I was eighteen, and making all those decisions, Zuko offered me a job. Well, you can’t really call it a job, can you? He wanted me to be one of his hoods. He said the same things about me that my father did – that I could negotiate, I could talk a deal. And he said I was tough enough to back it up.’ Ray dropped his head for a moment, and then met Fraser’s gaze again. ‘I never told Dad, see, because I was afraid Dad would think I was stupid not to take up the offer. Zuko and his father, they were always the top dogs in the neighbourhood.’

‘You saw to it that Frank Zuko now holds very little power,’ Fraser reminded him.

‘Yeah. Yeah, I did.’ A pause, and then Ray continued, ‘OK, so that’s what Dad thought of me. But I don’t know what you’re going to think of this. I always wanted to be a cop, that’s the truth, but I guess I thought I wasn’t ever going to be good enough, so I didn’t – Well, Zuko wasn’t too far wrong, trying to recruit me. I wasn’t exactly pure as the driven snow back then.’

Fraser nodded. ‘I know.’

‘You know?’ Ray seemed amazed. ‘And you’re still my friend?’

‘I had guessed as much, from what you’d told me about your background. Surely you can forgive yourself, Ray, when you consider everything you’ve done since.’

‘Unbelievable. I thought you’d – Well, I don’t know. I don’t think you forgive yourself that easily, do you?’ Ray sat back with a smile, apparently not expecting an answer to that. ‘All right, Benny, you’ve heard everything, you made me tell you the whole damned lot. Now we just have to work out what to do next, right?’

‘Right,’ said Fraser, returning his friend’s smile. The waitress wandered past, and they ordered two more espressos.

♦

‘Leonardo Milan’s doing time, all right,’ Ray said with some measure of satisfaction. It was Saturday, a couple of weeks after Milan’s sentencing hearing. ‘He’s doing his community service at an old people’s home.’

‘Then he is at least returning something to the community he took from.’

‘Yeah, I suppose you’re going to start telling me how the greater good is being served.’ Ray took the next left turn, and parked the Riviera. ‘Let’s go see how young Leo is.’

Fraser looked at his friend. ‘You insisted on me accompanying you today without telling me what you were planning, and now I discover you’re intending to harass a young man who is making reparation.’

‘It’s not harassment,’ Ray protested. ‘It’s taking an interest.’

‘I see.’ Fraser followed the cop up the street, and through a set of gates in a brick wall. An enclosed garden stretched before them, small but pleasant and basking in sunshine, leading up to a low building. A few of the residents were sitting on park benches, or strolling the grounds. Leo Milan was also in the garden, standing amidst trowels and up‑rooted weeds, puzzling over a box he held in one hand. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Milan,’ Fraser said, hoping to set an urbane tone for this interaction.

Milan looked up at the Mountie, stared suspiciously at Ray. ‘Detective Vecchio. What the hell do you want?’

‘Now is that appropriate language for this place?’ Ray asked. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘What are you doing here, man? You had your chance, you arrested me, the judge sent me here, it’s over now.’

‘If only it was. The judge was a lot more lenient on you than I would have been.’

‘Hey, I couldn’t go to jail, not right now. I don’t have the time to do time, you know?’

Ray was considering the young man. ‘So the judge gave you one last chance. And it _is_ your last chance, Leonardo. Next conviction, you’re not going to be back on the streets.’

Milan raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Well, that all depends…’ he said vaguely, looking down at the box again – it contained pellets of plant food.

‘What are you going to do with this chance, Leo?’ the cop persisted. ‘What are you going to do with your life?’

‘Oh, I’m going to make full use of it.’ There was something odd about the boy’s attitude, but maybe that was due to a resentment of Ray’s unasked-for advice. He was certainly a little nervous. ‘Don’t you worry,’ Milan was continuing quietly, turning away and kneeling on the grass, ‘this is a great opportunity.’

Fraser moved to crouch beside Milan. ‘You’re doing a fine job here,’ he said. ‘Although this isn’t a weed.’ He held up one of the up‑rooted plants. ‘I believe they intended this to stay in the garden bed.’

The young man shrugged. ‘Don’t have many gardens in the neighbourhood.’

‘I know. These ones would be unintentional additions.’ Fraser pointed out a few weeds that Milan had missed, and then took up the box of plant food. ‘Now, if you scatter about a teaspoon of this around the base of each plant, and then water the whole bed well, I believe your current task will be complete.’

‘Yeah,’ Milan said reluctantly. ‘Yeah, thanks.’

‘Anytime,’ Fraser told him. ‘You’re doing well, and I’m sure these people will appreciate your efforts.’ He stood, and stepped away, waiting for Ray to leave.

‘Just don’t go messing this up, kid,’ Ray said, with less conviction than before. ‘Or I’m going to want to know why.’

‘What’s it to you? I’m not any of your business now.’

‘Oh yes, you are. I’m making you my business, you and your gang friends.’

‘Man, you are crazy. You’re so full of good advice, why don’t you listen to some for once? Just stay out of our way, Detective, just keep your distance.’

‘I can’t do that, Leo,’ Ray said. And he walked away towards the gates.

Fraser watched Ray for a moment, and then nodded at Milan. ‘Good day,’ he said in farewell, and he followed his friend.

♦

‘See, they’re planning something.’ Ray sounded grim at being proved correct.

‘It does appear that way,’ Fraser agreed. He and Ray were sitting in the Riviera just down the street from the abandoned warehouse that Leo Milan and his friends had made their own. The three doors along the front of the building – each large enough to fit a truck through – had been left open, as this summer night was rather warm. Through the doors, it could easily be seen that the gang were discussing something with some intensity and with much reference being made to papers scattered on the floor. ‘You know, if we climbed onto the roof of the building opposite them, we may be able to make out what is on those papers.’

‘Lead the way.’

Fraser did so. They walked down to the building, staying in the shadows, headed up the alley along one side, and then Ray waited while Fraser clambered up to the second floor via pallets and window ledges. The fire escape was still functional, so Fraser let the ladder down for Ray to scramble up. It was a simple matter then to reach the roof, though Ray needed a hand to clamber over the parapet without causing too much harm to his suit.

Within moments the cop and the Mountie were looking down at the gang across the street. Fraser took out his telescope and focussed on the papers. ‘They appear to be roughly drawn floor plans, Ray, but I can’t make out many details from this distance.’ While Ray had a look through the telescope, Fraser quickly sketched the little he’d been able to see. ‘There’s a large room – if it is meant to be a building – and several smaller rooms along one side, with bays or alcoves along what might be the front.’

‘Yeah,’ Ray said. ‘And there’s a couple of photos there, too. I can’t see enough to recognise the place. What do you reckon? They must be planning a robbery of some sort.’

‘It’s easy to leap to that conclusion. Or they may be the floor plans for a proposed new base of operations.’

‘Sure. Well, we can’t do anything for now, we don’t have enough to arrest them or anything. It’s just suspicious, really. Completely circumstantial.’ Ray sighed, and turned to sit with his back against the parapet. ‘You know, it wasn’t so long ago that lot would play games here. They’d run around the warehouse pretending to be cops and robbers, or rival gangsters, or whatever hoods do. Now they want to join the major league.’

Fraser suggested, ‘We could go over there and talk to them.’

Ray let out a laugh. ‘You’re nuts, Benny. They’re probably all carrying guns and knives and who knows what, we’d be out-numbered five to one on their home turf, and you want to go tell them an Inuit story.’

‘A particularly relevant one does occur to me.’

‘Forget it. We’ll keep following them around, until we work out what they’re planning. Then hopefully we can nip it in the bud.’

‘Why can’t we attempt to nip it in the bud tonight? Even if they are armed, I doubt they would want to join the major league, as you put it, by attempting to harm two police officers. That’s taking too great a step from the petty crimes they have been guilty of committing until now.’

Ray was looking at Fraser with a troubled expression. When Fraser turned to sit next to him, he was surprised to feel Ray reach over to clasp his hand for a moment. The cop said, ‘Benny, sometimes I just can’t tell whether you’re being really really brave or really really stupid.’

‘Well, I try not to let fear affect my actions, Ray. If the only reason not to do something is fear, then I believe it should be done regardless.’

‘But this is going too far. We don’t know what they’re planning over there. If it’s something big, then they might panic seeing us strolling in, they might over-react. Don’t call it fear, call it common sense this time, OK?’ He waited until Fraser nodded in agreement. ‘Let’s not be the fools that rush in. We’ll take this one slow and steady.’

‘Yes, Ray.’

_‘Yes, Ray?’_ the fellow repeated with some incredulity. ‘You’re letting me talk you into something? Or out of something, anyway.’

‘Apparently so.’

‘How about that.’ He sounded pleased, but mostly bemused.

They sat there for a while, Fraser looking up at the few stars he could see beyond the city’s haze of light, and endeavouring to hear anything the gang members were saying from across the street. He caught a few unrelated words – while none seemed to add anything to the little they already knew, he jotted them down.

‘I didn’t tell you,’ Ray finally said. ‘Huey and Louie had a case wind up today. Fellow charged with five counts including aggravated assault, entered into a plea bargain, he was given community service. I mean, it was five hundred hours or something pretty significant, but still… Aggravated assault. Doesn’t seem right. They were pretty upset, Louie was shoving chairs around.’

Fraser watched his friend, wondering where Ray saw the problem lying.

‘It was the same judge, you know.’

‘Judges are individuals, too, Ray. Some are harsher in sentencing than others.’

‘I used to think this guy was pretty harsh, especially when it came to assault and things like that. Crimes against people rather than property.’ Ray sighed. ‘Oh, it’s nice for these lawyers and judges. The cops get to do all the dirty work, and then the lawyers just let the criminals go.’

‘Perhaps you’re over-simplifying –’

‘Maybe Dad was right,’ Ray continued morosely. ‘I should have been a lawyer. They’re in no danger, they just race around in their Porsches, work in nice offices. Then they get to be a judge one day, and they can make whatever damned decisions they want, they can change the law.’

‘Is that what you want, Ray?’

The man looked over at Fraser, almost as if he’d forgotten he had company, and as he thought about the question Ray laughed. ‘Actually, I never once in my whole life wanted a Porsche, Benny.’ He sat up a little straighter. ‘This isn’t an Inuit story, but it’ll just have to do.’

‘Yes, Ray,’ Fraser said, always happy to listen to his friend.

‘There we were late one night, me and Kerrie Montgomery, sixteen years old and itching to lose our virginities. It wasn’t a night like this, it was almost winter – we couldn’t go to her place or to mine because of our folks – what were we going to do?’

‘I don’t know, Ray,’ Fraser responded with some wariness. He was usually more than happy to listen to Ray’s stories, but perhaps this one was a little too personal.

‘You must have been in the same situation yourself, out in the Yukon. Nowhere to get even part-way naked, without freezing your tush off.’

A long moment stretched, and then Fraser nodded vaguely, at least understanding the point Ray was making.

‘Well, we soon figured out the ideal solution. My uncle, he had this really hot car. It was parked up the back of the vacant lot next to his place. Kerrie and I, we broke into it.’ The cop looked at the Mountie. ‘I bet you can guess what kind of car it was.’

A breath, and then it clicked. ‘Oh. A 1971 Buick Riviera.’

‘Dark green,’ Ray added with a satisfied nod. ‘I hot-wired it, got the heater going. We listened to the radio, waiting to warm up. Wish I could say they played some memorable songs, but they didn’t, it was all junk. Anyway, we finally got naked. There in my uncle’s Riv, just off the streets of Chicago. It was –’ Ray grinned, and met Fraser’s gaze again. ‘Well, it was probably as quick and as wonderful and as disappointing as your first time.’

Fraser offered the man a non-committal kind of shrug, unable to maintain eye contact. Wondering if Americans often talked about this particular topic, or if it was just Ray Vecchio.

A long moment of silence. Ray’s easy gaze became a scrutiny. Finally he said, ‘You _have_ lost your virginity, haven’t you, Benny?’

There was no way to respond to that.

Ray tried, ‘At least temporarily misplaced it for a while?’ But the man eventually showed some mercy. ‘Well, I hear you earn it back if you go without for five years or more.’

‘All of which helps to explains,’ Fraser said thickly, wanting to find a moral somewhere in the story, ‘why you are so attached to your car.’

‘Yeah.’ Ray let out a laugh under his breath, more rueful than humorous. Apparently the story was not yet finished. ‘Dad found out, of course. There’s my uncle’s car, broken into, scratched, hot-wired. A bit messy inside, not to put too fine a point on it. There’s me, fornicating while still underage. Ruining a local girl’s reputation. I wasn’t smart enough – or prepared enough – to use a rubber, so there was the big scare Kerrie might be pregnant, though we did the interruptus thing, which wasn’t much fun, and didn’t help with the mess.’ The laugh now was happier. ‘Because we spent a few hours together, you see, doing everything we could think of – which wasn’t really a great deal, I guess, but it was good. Listening to the radio between times. Kissing. Yeah, it was nice. Anyway, once Dad found out, it was not a great situation, he had plenty to be mad about. He hit me. And I was too cocky and too distracted to even think about ducking in time. Caught me a good one, right on the jaw; swung back around and got my temple. That’s when I finally stood up to him, though. I finally realised I was taller than him. I realised I was on my way to being more of a man than he ever was. So I hauled myself upright, towered over him, and told him not to ever do that again, I was too old now to be treated like that. And he never did,’ Ray said with a surprised lift of his eloquent eyebrows. ‘He thought about it plenty, but he never hit me again.’

When Ray looked over at him, Fraser didn’t say anything, for there was nothing to say, but he tried to express all his compassion for this man.

‘So… Dad hit me one minute, berated me in front of Kerrie’s father the next, then took me aside later and cracked some stupid lewd joke. Acted like he was proud of me, telling the story to a couple of friends like I was all grown up now. Almost hit me again when my uncle told him I’d flattened the battery, used a significant amount of gas. I got ten different messages from him about one thing, how was I ever meant to learn anything? That’s what he was like. I can see _why_ now, though – it was all an act, he was reacting all the time like he thought he was supposed to. I don’t know who he really was. I don’t know if _he_ knew who he was.’

There was a brief silence as Ray contemplated this story, staring at his own hands, which lay in his lap, betraying the cop’s tension as they grasped each other tightly. At last Ray met Fraser’s gaze again, and the Mountie said, ‘That’s sad, Ray.’

‘Yes, it is.’

Fraser turned to sit cross-legged facing his friend – and he reached for Ray’s hands, held them in his for a while, thumbs gently massaging, until Ray eased. The Mountie asked, ‘What happened to the young lady?’

‘Kerrie. She got in as much trouble as I did. We didn’t see each other for a while, our folks made everything too difficult, and we weren’t exactly Romeo and Juliet. We were friends, though. Francesca took a few notes and letters between us, she and Kerrie went to the same school. A couple of years later, I dated Kerrie for a while. That was nice, too, I kind of figured we’d end up married, you know, but she moved on to greener pastures. I went to law school. Story of my love life – they always figure there are greener pastures elsewhere.’

They sat there for a while, Fraser conveying comfort to his friend through their joined hands. The night was pleasantly warm, the gang across the road were apparently talking of other, more congenial matters than their robbery plans.

Ray at last turned from contemplating his own history to considering Fraser. Eventually he said, ‘You don’t want to tell me, I know that, but I’m a pushy Italian, and I have a deadly curiosity. Are you a virgin, Benny?’

Fraser sighed, and withdrew his hands from Ray’s. Nevertheless, it seemed churlish to avoid telling his best friend the truth. ‘Yes.’

‘Really?’ The cop didn’t sound terribly surprised, though he was full of wonder. ‘How did you manage that? I mean, it’s not like you don’t have passion. It’s not that you don’t want love.’

‘Well, I don’t find virginity to be a burden, Ray. But it just happened this way.’

‘Or didn’t happen.’

Fraser winced a little. ‘The energies can be usefully re-channelled.’

‘But surely you’d rather channel them where they belong, where they’d do you the most good.’

This was difficult, but Fraser tried to explain. ‘I believe that an obligation to the other person must be associated with making love. I have generally felt that I was unable to truly meet that obligation, or that my commitment has not been wanted. People have wanted so much from me, but with no obligation. No faith.’

‘Well, what about that woman you told me about? You never actually said you loved her, but it sure sounded like it to me.’

Fraser couldn’t help but smile at the memory of telling his heart-broken story in the darkness of a stake out, telling Ray who had himself just fallen in love with a mysterious woman – and looking up halfway through to find that Ray was completely oblivious. ‘I thought you’d fallen asleep,’ Fraser accused.

‘Did I? Well, I guess I must have heard some of it.’

‘That woman and I,’ Fraser said flatly, ‘were trapped on a mountain in a snowstorm, Ray. We both almost died. It was cold, we had no food, we had no tent. I can’t say the thought didn’t cross my mind –’

‘Yeah, it was love, wasn’t it? And she was beautiful.’

‘– but it would have been a senseless waste of calories.’

Ray looked at him blankly. ‘You’re thinking love, and sex, and _calories_? You mad romantic fool.’

‘I was thinking survival, Ray. If she and I had made love, it would have been because we thought we wouldn’t live. It would have been an act of utter despair.’

‘Oh, Benny,’ the cop said, as if his own heart was broken.

‘The last night we spent together – We’d found my supplies by then, we had a tent. We were in sight of a town, and we knew we were safe. But things were wrong between us. It ended badly. If we’d made love on that last night, it would have been – it would have been the darkest thing either of us had ever done.’

Ray slowly sat up straighter, shifting closer to Fraser, his eyes full of sorrow and his mobile face expressing more compassion than Fraser had ever felt. His hands found Fraser’s, and clutched at them.

Fraser found a smile for him. ‘It’s all right, Ray. That was a very long time ago.’ Apparently the cop wanted to say something, but was unsure how. ‘It’s all right,’ Fraser repeated. ‘Perhaps – You know, it’s very late. Perhaps we should go home, if we can return to the car without Leo Milan and his friends seeing us.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, of course.’ Ray let the moment and Fraser’s hands go, and stood up. ‘God, how did we get on to all that?’ He began backtracking as they headed for the stairs. ‘Your virginity, my Dad, my virginity, the Riv, lawyers… Hey, Benny,’ Ray said, pausing at the parapet. ‘What the hell is a prosecuting attorney doing driving a Porsche? They don’t earn that much.’

‘Perhaps she has her own money as well as her salary.’

‘If you had money, why would you do a job like that?’

Fraser looked at him. ‘You said it was an easier job than being a cop,’ he reminded Ray. ‘You said –’

‘I know, I know. But it’s a thankless job, long hours, dealing with the scum of the earth, and it’s tough on the morals.’

‘Well, that’s something to ponder, Ray, but I believe we should remain as quiet as possible while returning to the car if we don’t want to announce our presence.’

‘Sure,’ Ray said, and he followed Fraser down the rusty old stairs.

♦

Fraser stayed up late, sitting on his bed in his long-johns, reading his father’s journals for 1973. It was a strange experience, getting to know his father now that he was dead. While alive Robert Fraser had been the absent father, to be both loved and resented, and he’d been the heroic, larger-than-life Mountie who Benton dreamed of living up to. Death was making it more obvious that Robert Fraser was after all a human being. Threading through the tales of adventure and courage in his journals were currents of less attractive human traits such as vanity and pettiness.

It was good to get to know the man better, even at this late stage. Benton still loved his father as much as ever. In fact, he found he loved Robert Fraser even more now – for really _knowing_ a person, knowing their sublime moments and their weak moments, when they triumphed and when they failed, knowing them day and night – Benton believed that detailed knowledge provided the depth and breadth of love.

His resentment of his father was slowly turning into the simple wish that they had spent more time together while Robert Fraser was still alive.

However, the image of his father as the last of an idealised breed was becoming a little tarnished. Perhaps this was one matter that Benton needed to really question. As a child he’d had the utmost faith in his father the quintessential hero. Everyone had talked of Robert Fraser in those terms – so much so that the eulogies when he died were no more glowing than the commendations given while he lived. Perhaps Benton’s father was part myth. Partly a legend that he and his colleagues and his son had all helped create.

Well, Benton could live with that, and could love his father all the more for being human. But he suspected he needed to question himself very closely. All his life he had spent trying to live up to standards that were partly myth, partly his own imagination. And that realisation created a cleft where self-doubt might seep in. Benton had discovered differences between himself and his father – and differences between his father, the man, and Robert Fraser, the last of a breed. Perhaps it was time to examine whether there were differences between Benton Fraser, the man, and his own ideals.

Meanwhile, Benton kept working his way through his father’s journals. He had found a particularly interesting paragraph that ended an account of a difficult arrest, and he spent some while puzzling over it.

_I took Grady back to town with me and, in accordance with our local arrangement, sent him to work out at Elk Horn’s place. By the time the circuit judge next arrived, nine weeks later, the general consensus was that Grady had done his time and paid for both his crime and the efforts he cost me. Forms were lost, records were mislaid. The people of the Yukon have never been big on paperwork._

‘What was this arrangement?’ Benton asked at last.

His father, in dress reds as usual, was standing in the shadows by the kitchen window. ‘A very practical affair. I was rather pleased with it. The judge came to us for two days every eight weeks or so, and there were always far too many cases to be reasonably dealt with. So we enabled people to pay their debt to society through community service.’

‘As a law enforcement officer, you were pleased with that, even though it ignored or bypassed the legal system.’

‘Oh yes. The arrangement met our needs, and dealt with some very real problems.’

Benton frowned. ‘It may have been practical, though it sounds more expedient to me. It may even have been fair, though no one would ever have been able to judge that. But it wasn’t right, Dad. If it had been right, you wouldn’t have had to lose the paperwork. You wouldn’t have had to lie.’

‘So we worked around the system in order to best meet the same results. It was justice that the people wanted.’

‘So is the legal system, Dad – that’s justice that the people want. The concepts of justice and truth –’

Robert Fraser interrupted him. ‘They’re fine concepts, son, but human beings are fallible creatures. The legal system isn’t perfect.’

‘No, it isn’t. But if you want to change things, then change the system – don’t work around it. Or if you can’t trust the people in the system, then confront them, and deal with the individuals involved.’

‘I don’t believe you’re being realistic, son.’

Difficult to argue with his father’s opinions, difficult to stand tall against his disapproval. ‘Justice and truth, Dad. They aren’t abstract ideas that come from somewhere beyond us – they are goals _we_ have conceived of by ourselves. They are part of us. They are as human as fallibility, as human as nobility. We can live them.’

‘But our arrangement was about justice,’ Robert Fraser protested.

‘Maybe, but it wasn’t about truth,’ his son insisted. Benton sighed, leaned his head back against the wall. ‘Did money ever change hands?’

‘What kind of question is that?’

Benton looked across at the man. ‘If you’d still been alive, when I turned Gerard in, you would have had to answer some difficult questions. You would have had to explain about that bank account.’

‘Huh,’ Robert Fraser said dismissively. ‘If I was still alive, you wouldn’t have known anything about it.’

‘Maybe not.’

A moment of silence passed as father and son considered each other. The father said, ‘But if you had known, you’d still have turned Gerard in, wouldn’t you?’

‘I don’t understand why you didn’t. You knew he was corrupt, and you managed to keep some distance from that yourself.’

‘Does friendship count for nothing, son?’

‘Making exceptions for a favoured few isn’t right, Dad.’

‘What if you discovered Detective Vecchio is corrupt? What would you do then?’

Benton sat up on the side of the bed, planted his feet on the floor, and shook his head. ‘He’s a good man, with a moral heart, no matter how much he pretends otherwise. Ray wouldn’t do that.’

‘But if he did? If you haven’t chosen your friends as well as you like to think?’

‘Then I’d do the right thing.’

‘You’re a hard man, Benton.’

‘No. No, I’m not.’ He sighed, feeling suddenly tired, and he rubbed at his forehead with one hand. ‘If I was a hard man, the decisions I’ve made in my life would have been far easier.’

Silence, and then Robert Fraser nodded. Perhaps the lamplight faded, or perhaps he was about to depart again, for his image became less distinct.

‘I love you, Dad.’

‘I love you, too, son,’ the man replied, ‘though you are quite the idealist. Perhaps that’s dangerous in this line of work. Physically dangerous, and not conducive to your peace of mind.’

‘Oh,’ Benton said with a smile, ‘I wouldn’t be without my idealism. _Especially_ in this line of work.’ But the man had gone. Benton Fraser lay back on his bed, putting the journal aside for now. ‘Dad,’ he said quietly, ‘you’re a far more pragmatic man than I’d thought. And I love you – I love you for who you were, no more and no less.’

Perhaps it was time to acknowledge that the standards Benton chose to live up to were his own. They weren’t his father’s, they didn’t even belong to the myth that his father had tried to be – they were Benton’s, drawn from his own ideas and ideals and images. _Yes_, he thought, before blowing out the lamp and falling into the peace of sleep.

♦

With Diefenbaker at his heels, Fraser strolled easily down the street, reflecting on the fact that he was really quite content. It was a pleasant feeling, and one he had rarely encountered in his life. Unexpected to find contentment here in the city of Chicago, far from all he used to think of as home. The emotion had something to do with the sunshine, and the satisfaction of recent physical exertion, and the wolf happily trotting from one fascinating smell to another, and the man walking beside Fraser. Ray was strolling a few feet away, across the breadth of the sidewalk, and they were bouncing and passing a basketball between them, dodging the other Saturday afternoon wanderers. They had just spent an hour playing pick-up basketball on an outdoor court in Ray’s neighbourhood. Fraser had won the game – though only by three points – a victory which enhanced his good mood.

From the man’s smile, it seemed Ray shared Fraser’s contentment. Ray asked, ‘You coming back home for dinner?’

‘Do you think your mother would mind? It’s very short notice.’

‘No, that’s fine. She always makes enough to cope with an undetermined number of Italian appetites. One Canadian and one wolf won’t make much difference.’

Fraser raised his eyebrows, wondering if he was meant to take that as a bantering challenge. Instead he said very formally, ‘Then I would love to have dinner with you and your family, Ray.’

‘Good.’ The cop, about to pass the ball, bouncing it between one passer-by and the next, faltered. ‘There’s Leo Milan,’ Ray said, squinting ahead against the sunlight. ‘See him?’

‘Yes.’ Fraser and Ray both came to a halt to watch Milan as he conversed with another man a few years older than him. ‘Do you know who he’s talking to?’

‘No, but he’s kind of familiar. Looks like more of the same – local hoods.’

Fraser wandered over to stand beside Ray, to take the basketball from his hands. ‘Do you want to follow him again?’

‘Let’s just let him see us. I don’t mind if he thinks we’re here just because of him.’

‘You know, if he wanted to accuse you of harassment, he may be able to present a good case.’

‘Huh. Leo gets more nervous every time he sees us. That lot are up to something, and I want them to think long and hard about it before they go ahead.’ Ray leaned back against the wall of the building behind them, as it seemed Milan may be a while. Fraser propped himself against the ledge that ran three feet above the ground, and spun the ball in his hands. Dief wandered off over the road to investigate another dog. ‘You know what this might be,’ Ray said after a while.

‘No.’

‘If that other guy’s from another gang, an older group, Leo might be negotiating an alliance with them. You know, strength in numbers and all that.’

‘I see,’ said Fraser, unaccustomed to these practices. ‘What would he have that the other gang want?’

‘A young group like that, I reckon they’d have to buy their way in, or make a deal of one kind or another, or prove themselves somehow.’ Ray turned to stare at Fraser. ‘Which is what they’re planning, of course. Something big or serious, to announce their presence, make a claim. Prove they’re worthwhile allies. That’s what Milan’s gang are getting so jittery about.’

‘Then it may already be too late to nip it in the bud, and we need to keep a close watch on them.’

‘Yeah,’ Ray agreed, turning back to Milan. ‘Hell, what would it be? What are they going to do?’

Fraser and Ray were silent for a time, watching the two gang members as they talked. Both were quite friendly, but it seemed that Milan felt at a disadvantage. There was a great deal of offering and reassurance, and then a stylised handshake. Leo Milan began walking down the sidewalk towards where the cop and the Mountie waited.

‘Oh, man,’ Leo said as soon as he was close by. ‘What are you doing here?’

Ray smiled at him, though it wasn’t a pleasant expression. ‘Staying close, Leo. Maintaining an interest. Who was that you were talking to?’

Milan seemed full of dismay. ‘I’ve told you before, Detective, you should stay out of our way.’

‘Never mind, I’m sure I’ll find a mug shot of him down at the station.’

‘You just don’t listen, do you?’

Fraser asked, ‘What are you trying to warn us away from, Mr Milan?’

Leo stared at him, and Ray rolled his eyes in exasperation. Milan said, ‘Nothing. Forget it. If you’ve got a thing for me, Detective, and you like following me around like a lost puppy, that’s fine. We’ll all just live with it.’

‘I can live with it if you can,’ the cop said.

‘Yeah, fine.’ Leo shook his head, and wandered off, impatient and dismissive.

‘Why do you do that?’ Ray asked Fraser.

‘Do what, Ray?’

‘Ask questions that no one’s going to answer.’

‘If Leo is concerned about our involvement for our sakes, he may well tell us why.’

‘No, he won’t. If anything, we need to tease a hint from him, startle him into blurting out more than he intended. You don’t know what’s going on here, Fraser. This is my neighbourhood, we’ll do this one my way, all right?’

Fraser nodded. ‘My mistake, Ray.’

‘Good.’ The cop pushed both hands into the pockets of his track-pants. ‘Now, come on home with me, and we’ll get some Italian food into you. It’ll put hair on your chest.’

Fraser nodded, tucking the basketball into the crook of one arm. He attracted Diefenbaker’s attention with a wave and a shout, and walked off beside his friend. Simple, then, to ease back into the contentment. Simple and really rather pleasant. All it took was Ray reluctantly beginning to smile at him again. Fraser asked, ‘Why would I want hair on my chest, Ray?’

The cop just laughed.

♦

They had done this so often now that it felt familiar. Fraser and Ray were sitting in the Riviera just down the street from the warehouse where Leo Milan and his friends spent their time. If Leo had ever noticed them there, he had never deigned to acknowledge as much. Every other night or so, the cop and the Mountie would scout around the area, and try to learn something more about what the gang were planning, but they’d had no luck so far.

‘I have been thinking about our suspicions of the judge and the prosecuting attorney,’ Fraser announced. It was after midnight, but the gang members were milling about restlessly, and Ray seemed in no mood to go home.

‘What suspicions?’

‘Your concerns about the lenient sentences given in Leo Milan’s case, and in Detectives Huey and Gardino’s case tried by the same judge. Your observation that prosecuting attorneys can rarely afford to drive Porsches.’

‘Er, yeah,’ the cop agreed warily.

‘I inferred from the way he phrased his responses to you that Leo Milan had a particular need to be free at the moment. If he is a key player in their negotiations with the older gang, or in their current plans, then perhaps he paid for a sentence involving no time in jail.’

Ray shook his head. ‘That’s an awfully long bow to draw, Benny.’

‘I am aware that it’s all circumstantial at present, Ray, but isn’t that the direction your thoughts were tending towards?’

‘I guess. I guess I just hadn’t put it into words yet. But I was really only suspicious of the prosecuting attorney.’

Fraser shifted in the seat to face him. ‘That may have been the most likely conclusion to draw in Huey and Gardino’s case, as a plea bargain can be arranged through the lawyers alone. However, in your case with Leo Milan, the judge handed down both the conviction and the sentence. Therefore, if there is corruption, the judge and the prosecuting attorney are involved, with the assistance of the relevant defence lawyer.’

Ray let out a long breath. ‘Now, here’s another one we need to take slow and steady, Benny. This is very serious stuff you’re alleging.’

‘I know, Ray.’ Fraser frowned at him. ‘You seem unwilling to consider this situation, but initially you were more suspicious than I was. In fact, at first I thought you were simply over-reacting to Milan not going to jail.’

A long moment of silence. Ray was staring through the windshield, expression troubled. ‘We just need to be careful with this sort of case, OK? This city, there is so much dirt around. Mud sticks, no matter what. You try to do something about all the dirt, you try to live your life clean, but it rubs off on you sooner or later.’ He paused, and then turned to look at Fraser. ‘Even your father, even up there in the Yukon, he got mixed up in the dirt. I don’t want that to happen to you.’

Fraser met the man’s gaze, and he nodded his understanding. ‘It won’t happen to me.’

But the cop was not satisfied. ‘This city changes people, Benny. Like your friend, Mark Smithbauer. I don’t want the city to –’

‘Chicago won’t change me, Ray,’ he whispered. ‘I promise.’

‘Oh, it already has,’ Ray said, apparently caught between humour and despair.

Fraser smiled a little, and asked, ‘In what way?’

The cop cast about him for an example. ‘I saw you kicking the photocopier at the station the other day.’

‘Well, Elaine assured me it was the only remedy for a persistent paper jam.’

‘You see – you know better than that.’

He couldn’t help but let his smile broaden. ‘Ah, it may not have helped the machine, but it did feel good to me, Ray.’

Ray cried out, ‘Oh God, there’s no hope for you.’ The despair seemed to grow until there was no room any more for humour. Fraser reached a reassuring hand to grasp Ray’s, surprised when the man froze.

Fraser’s first reaction was to wonder at Ray’s discomfort in being touched. But in the next moment Fraser started, about to turn as he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. What felt suspiciously like a gun barrel pressed into his skull behind his right ear.

‘Detective Vecchio,’ said Leonardo Milan, ‘and Constable Fraser. You’re right, there’s no hope. Put your hands up where I can see them.’ Fraser had to let go of Ray’s hand in order to comply. Seeing this, Milan let out a laughing groan. ‘You two come here to park, do you?’

‘What’s going on, Leo?’ the cop asked, ignoring the young man’s question. Ray’s tones were surprisingly cool despite the fact he also had a gun to his head. The Riviera’s windows were open on this warm night, which had not helped matters. Milan and another gang member must have crept up either side of the car while the two police officers talked.

‘I told you to leave us alone, but you wouldn’t listen. Your friend here even figured out I was warning you off.’

Ray said, ‘My friend here also knows you’re planning a crime, and he doesn’t frighten easily.’

Fraser met Ray’s glance, and then they both scanned the area. Other gang members were approaching now, all armed. There was no chance to make a move. Fraser had no wish to risk Ray being shot.

Milan was continuing, ‘Well, the Constable is right. We need to go commit a crime right now. And seeing as you two invited yourselves along, we’re going to have to make sure you’ll stay out of harm’s way.’ Milan and his friend each opened the Riviera’s doors. ‘Get out of the car, and don’t try anything.’

Soon Fraser and Ray were standing in the back of the warehouse with their hands in the air. They were being shown a small, dark and apparently secure room empty of anything but a table, two chairs and a few lengths of rope.

‘We’re going to tie you up,’ Milan explained, ‘and leave you here. No one can hear you outside this room, it’s real solid, and there’s no one around here anyhow.’

Fraser said, ‘I can’t let you do that.’

One of the other gang members said, ‘Man, it’s not a matter of _letting_ us do anything. We’re just doing it.’

‘But I am honour bound,’ Fraser explained, ‘to not assist you in the commission of a crime. I’m afraid that I can’t let you leave here.’

‘Yeah, you _should_ be afraid,’ the young man muttered, ‘but not of that.’

Ray broke in, ‘You don’t have a choice, Fraser.’

The gang member said, ‘Oh yes, he does.’ There was a threat in his voice devoid of compassion, and a light in his eyes that spoke of a dangerous curiosity. Fraser met the deadly gaze with understanding.

‘All right,’ Ray was continuing, ‘you have a choice. You can let them tie you up while they run off and do whatever it is they have to do. Or you can put up a fight, in which case they’ll hurt you or kill you, and then they’ll still run off and do this thing. OK?’ Ray’s expression had never been so serious, so pleading. ‘You don’t have a choice, Fraser.’

The Mountie looked about him. It was true they were outnumbered by heavily armed young men wanting action, and Ray was obviously not in an invincible mood. ‘What you’re doing,’ Fraser said. ‘Are people going to be hurt?’

Milan answered him. ‘No, it’s about money. There’s no one there this time of night, there’s not even a guard. No one will be hurt.’

‘Except maybe you, if you don’t start co‑operating,’ another one said.

‘I can’t let you do this,’ Fraser repeated, though he knew he sounded less convinced.

‘Do it now,’ Ray said with brisk authority. ‘Tie us up. We’ll sort this out when you get back, we’ll talk a deal.’

Fraser hated it, his soul revolted at the whole notion, but he sat down and let Milan tie his feet to the chair legs. Another young man did the same to Ray, so the cop and the Mountie faced each other across the width of the table. Their arms were secured at full stretch by two pieces of rope that linked under the table, tied tightly enough that circulation in their hands would become a problem in less than an hour. At any given moment, there were at least two men with weapons trained on them. One of them belatedly took the gun from Ray’s shoulder holster. The cop seemed resigned to the process.

The dangerous one stared at them once it was done, an anticipatory grin on his face. Milan appeared to be apologetic. The gang quietly withdrew, and closed the room up behind them. There was no light at all. Something was placed in the brackets outside that crossed the door, presumably locking them in. Fraser listened carefully, but heard no more.

A moment stretched. Fraser said, ‘I believe they were right. This room is soundproof.’

Ray was silent, which seemed an unusual state of affairs.

‘They have tied us up too well. I don’t believe I can work on these knots, my hands don’t have the necessary range of movement. In any case, the room itself is very secure. Though simply being free on their return would be an advantage. The chairs would make adequate weapons, and you still have your spare gun, do you not?’

‘Give it up, Fraser,’ the cop muttered.

‘I can’t do that, Ray.’

A moment passed, perhaps seeming longer in the darkness than it actually was. ‘We’re not going to get out of this one, Benny. They’re going to come back and kill us. They can’t afford for us to know who they are and what they’ve been doing. I’m sorry, Fraser.’

‘It’s not your fault.’

‘Yes, it is. I was too engrossed in talking with you, I should have noticed them sneak up on us. I guess I didn’t take them seriously enough.’

‘That’s not important now,’ Fraser said. ‘Ray, I don’t think killing us can be their only option. Murder is a very serious step that these young men will be hesitant to take.’

Ray groaned in exasperation. ‘Did you see the way that kid was looking at you? He’s real curious to see how you bleed.’

‘Yes, but even he is innocent as yet. We need to give them another option, Ray. We need to give them an option they’d prefer to take.’

Apparently Ray remained unconvinced. ‘No, this is the end of it, Fraser. We’re not getting out of this one.’

‘I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that we do,’ the Mountie vowed.

‘Oh, don’t give me hope, that would hurt far too much.’ Ray let out a breath, perhaps almost laughing. ‘I want to tell you something.’

‘Yes, Ray?’

‘We’re not going to make it, right? But if we’d made it out of here, I would have liked to be your first.’

Fraser replied easily, ‘I would have liked that, too, Ray.’

An impatient sigh. ‘I mean, I would have liked to have sex with you.’

‘I understand that, Ray.’

There was the briefest moment of surprised silence. Then the cop said, ‘Tell me you can’t see me right now. God, tell me you don’t have good night vision.’

Fraser smiled. ‘I can just make out your silhouette, but I cannot see your face. It would be nice to be able to see you.’

In terms of the conversation, Ray stumbled backwards for a moment. ‘You’d have liked it, too? Did you say that?’

‘Yes, I did. And of course I would have liked it, you should have no reason to doubt that.’ Fraser paused for a moment of thought. ‘Are you endeavouring to give me an incentive to ensure we survive this?’

‘Oh,’ the cop said dryly, ‘people rarely go out of their way to have sex with me, Fraser.’

‘Then perhaps I’ll be the exception to that rule.’ Fraser stretched out his fingers, managed to find Ray’s close to his on the table, and they clutched at each other as best they could. Moments fled, speeding by out of reach as fast as Fraser’s heartbeat. Perverse to find this passionate need, this intense communion with another human being – perverse to only find it during the extremity of danger. He was determined that this fledgling relationship would not end badly, as his previous love had. He was determined that this love would survive to grow unblighted. ‘Ray,’ Fraser began.

‘No, I have to tell you,’ the cop said quickly, sounding almost panicked. ‘You’re right, this is selfish. I didn’t think of it as an incentive, but if you need a reason to get us out of here, I’ll promise you anything. I’ll promise you anything anyway. There’s other things, though. God, Fraser, you’re the handsomest man I’ve ever seen, and that’s part of why I want you. And you know what the most ignoble thing is? I want to have your virginity, I want to be your first.’

‘You thought you had to tell me these things?’ Fraser asked. ‘Are you giving me a warning?’

‘Yeah, because you’d feel an obligation, right?’

‘But I already feel that obligation and commitment to you, as my friend.’

‘You do?’

‘You’re my best friend.’ Gripping the man’s fingers even harder in his, Fraser said roughly, ‘Did you have a sign this time, Ray? Did you get a sign telling you it was love?’

‘Yeah, oh yeah. We were sitting on that rooftop just over the road, and I was holding your hands in mine. You’d just broken my heart, and the stars were falling from the sky all around us.’

Fraser chuckled a little at the unexpected image. ‘I didn’t notice,’ he commented.

‘There’s probably impact craters, if you want to go find them,’ Ray said. And then he asked with greater seriousness, ‘Why? Did you have a sign?’

‘I don’t need one, I’ve only felt this once before in my life. I’d almost forgotten what it’s like,’ Fraser said, puzzled by this. ‘I’d almost dismissed it, I’d dismissed me and her as something I’d imagined. But I don’t believe I’ll forget again.’ He asked, ‘Ray, can you stand a little, and lean towards me?’

‘Why?’ the man asked, and then he breathed out an, ‘Oh,’ as he realised.

Clumsy in the darkness, neither able to move easily, and neither quite sure where the other was. The Mountie leaned slowly forward, until he bumped noses with the cop. A moment, and then their mouths met and meshed. Beautiful, Ray Vecchio tasted thoroughly beautiful. He was eager, and giving – and full of a respectful kind of hesitancy until Fraser encouraged him into passion. They kissed until Fraser’s lips felt swollen.

Eventually Ray pulled away. ‘I have to sit down again, Benny,’ he whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Are you all right?’ Fraser asked in tones just as hushed.

‘More all right than I’ve ever been.’ The cop cleared his throat. ‘Why does it always happen like this for me, Fraser? All the best things in my life are bittersweet. Every silver lining I get has a cloud attached. I lose my virginity with Kerrie, I land in twenty different kinds of trouble. I become a cop, my Dad gives up on me entirely. I tell you that I want you, we’re going to die before we do anything more than kiss.’

‘Remember your courage, Ray, and we’ll win through this.’

‘Courage? I’m so scared sitting here it’s a wonder I haven’t died of that already.’

‘Don’t let the fear get in the way. If we manage our fears, then we can do anything.’

‘You really believe that, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Human beings are incredible creatures, and we tend to let ourselves forget that. Think of this, Ray – if we can conceive of something as wonderful as grace, what _can’t_ we do?’

‘And I thought you weren’t religious,’ Ray said after a long moment.

‘I’m not religious in terms of God or the church,’ Fraser explained. ‘But I am as spiritual as you are, and I do know about grace and love and civility.’

Ray said, ‘That’s why I love you, do you see? Because I was just about to give up hope, and you came along and gave it back to me.’

‘No, you weren’t going to give up. You’re the most optimistic person I know, Ray. Despite all the bad things that have happened to you, you maintain your optimism. If you need to know the reasons I love you, that’s one of them.’

‘Damn, we need to get out of this, Benny. There’s no way I’m giving up on any chance of us.’

‘Good,’ said Fraser.

The cop asked, ‘Are you still holding my hands?’

‘Yes.’

‘I can’t feel anything, Benny.’

‘Oh dear.’ Fraser didn’t sigh, not wanting Ray to lose the courage he’d regained. ‘The ropes are a little too tight around our wrists. Anything we plan to do when they release us will need to take into account the fact that our hands won’t be fully functional. How are your feet?’

‘Much the same,’ the man admitted.

‘All right. We need to ensure they have an option preferable to homicide. Do you have any ideas?’

‘Well,’ Ray said, beginning to think it through. ‘I guess they need to either compromise us or kill us. Milan said it was about money, right? We can let them buy our silence. That won’t be such a strange idea for these guys. If we’re right, they’ve already bought a prosecuting attorney and a judge.’

‘I can’t take money from them, Ray.’

‘What?’ The cop sounded outraged. ‘Someone says to you _my money or your life_, and you have to _consider_ it?’

‘I’m sorry, Ray.’

‘You let them buy us, Benny. You don’t have a choice. It has to be compromise until we get out of here, OK?’

Sudden noise, something rough and heavy. Whatever barricaded the door was being lifted. The Mountie wasn’t surprised, but the cop started. Fraser said with some urgency, ‘Kiss me, Ray.’

A moan, fearful and hungry, as Ray leaned forward to do so. The kiss felt like the most desperate of farewells.

Ultimate passion for a moment, and then light spilled in on them. Milan would have seen the two men break apart, blinking as their eyes tried to adjust. Silence, and then Leo Milan let out a disgusted laugh. ‘I don’t believe it. Are you two queer for real?’

Fraser let his gaze drop to the table, unwilling to even face Ray.

‘Bring them out here,’ one of the others said.

Painful, their hands and feet released. Difficult, standing after almost two hours held captive. The Mountie and the cop hobbled out into the main room, rubbing at their wrists, and still squinting against the light.

It was immediately obvious that the gang had been successful – they were all in a euphoric mood, and they paid close regard to various bags of goods or money. While three of them had guns in their hands, they weren’t as vigilant in keeping them aimed at the two police officers as they had been.

‘What did you do?’ Ray asked dryly. ‘Rob a bank?’

‘Sure,’ Milan responded.

One of the younger gang members was poring over a handful of Polaroid photos. He wandered over to wave them in Ray’s face. ‘You want evidence, cop?’

‘Hardly need it, do I?’ Ray frowned, trying to see the subject of the pictures. ‘You robbed the local branch of the First National?’

Milan laughed. ‘Pretty good, huh?’

‘Yeah, not bad. But what do you want with all that money?’

‘We’re buying allegiance with another gang.’

The dangerous one sidled closer. ‘We’re impressing them,’ he said. ‘But they’re going to be a whole lot more impressed by two murdered cops.’

Leo Milan shook his head. ‘We don’t have to kill them.’

‘Hell, yes, we do. They know too much now, you’ve been telling them everything. It’s not _my_ fault, Leonardo. What, you have a soft spot for that Detective? He’s been tailing you around for so long you’ve gotten to be friends.’

‘No.’ Milan cast about him for the gang’s attention. ‘We were going to bribe them, right? We don’t need to give them any of the money, though. They’re queer. I walked in that room, and they were kissing.’

Fraser stared at the floor of the warehouse as if ashamed. Most of the young men expressed disbelief or disgust or both. ‘Are you for real?’ one asked.

‘Sure. They were holding hands in the car when we kidnapped them. And, yeah, Vecchio’s been following me around for weeks, but I never once saw him without his friend. I guess I didn’t figure it out until I saw them kissing, though.’

Ray cleared his throat, and said weakly, ‘Come on, Leo. Blackmail? This is getting too personal.’

‘Hey, you’re the one who made it personal, man. You just wouldn’t let me be.’

‘This is going too far – Look, it would ruin my career, OK? You know how they’d treat me down at the station.’

Milan smiled. ‘Yeah, I do know.’

Ray stared at him. ‘You’re going to hold this over my head?’

‘And his head, too,’ the young man said, gesturing at Fraser.

A long moment. ‘All right. I figured you’d have to bribe us. I’d have preferred the money, but – God, I can’t let my family know. You know what it’s like, being a good Catholic boy. I’m meant to marry an Italian girl and raise bambinos.’

‘What about him?’

Ray turned quickly to Fraser, apparently fearing he would answer for himself. ‘No matter how much hell they’d put me through at the station,’ Ray declared, ‘that’s nothing to what the Mounties do to one of their own if he – or she – turns out to be queer. You’ve no idea how cruel they can be.’

These macho young men all seemed suitably appalled by the whole idea.

‘Do we have a deal?’ Ray asked. ‘Our silence for yours. You understand what it would be like for me – and I understand how the gangs operate, I understand how important this is to you. I used to work for Frank Zuko when I was your age, you know.’

Milan looked about him for consensus.

The dangerous one looked madly resentful. ‘Oh, what’s the big deal?’ he said at last. ‘Who cares about killing two fag coppers. I sure don’t.’ And he turned away, kicked morosely at a bag of money.

‘I guess we have a deal,’ Milan said. ‘Except we need evidence, don’t we? Or else it’s your word against ours.’

‘What kind of evidence?’ Ray asked, eyes narrow, obviously impressed with this young man.

‘Jack, we need a photo of them.’

The kid with the Polaroids looked up. ‘I’m out of film.’

‘Come on, you have a dozen cameras stashed around here. You lift more than you can ever use.’

Jack sighed, and went to rummage around in some boxes piled haphazardly in a corner. He found a little automatic camera, and checked for film. ‘All right.’

‘You two,’ Milan said – ‘you have to kiss again. Otherwise it’s not evidence.’

Fraser honestly felt thoroughly embarrassed by this, and he let it show. The rest of this was all, of course, a deception – he would have no problem, if he only had himself to consider, in anyone knowing he was Ray’s lover. But, for Ray’s sake, he had found it easy enough to go along with Milan’s suggested deal. Despite which, kissing Ray in front of these boys, knowing they were to be photographed – that shook him to the core of his oh-so-private soul.

Ray was standing in front of him now, hands running up Fraser’s forearms in a clumsy though pleasant caress. ‘All right, Benny?’ he whispered so that none of the others could hear. ‘We have to do this, OK?’

‘Do your hands hurt?’ Fraser asked.

‘Yeah. Don’t worry about that right now, lover. We need to do this, and then get out of here.’ And, without waiting for his agreement, the cop leaned in and kissed the Mountie lightly on the lips.

Fraser knew they needed to do more than that – he lifted his arms around Ray’s shoulders, and deepened the kiss. Even in his embarrassment, the embrace felt wonderful. Ray gave himself to it with a surprised gasp that Fraser felt rather than heard. He maintained his hold only for a moment or two. Just long enough for the kid to get over his shock and take a couple of pictures. And then Fraser let the man go.

Milan seemed satisfied. ‘I don’t want to see you again, Vecchio,’ he said.

‘You won’t,’ Ray said grimly. He grabbed Fraser’s hand in his, held it firmly despite the dull pain. And, carefully watching the ten gang members for any hint of trouble, they walked slowly out of the warehouse on painful feet.

Within moments they were in the Riviera and Ray was speeding down the block. Silence for a moment. ‘I thought you were kissing me goodbye,’ Ray said at last, harsh. ‘But you set that whole deal up, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘God, I could kill you myself. Why didn’t you tell me you had a plan?’

‘I was sure you were perfectly capable of playing along,’ Fraser explained, ‘and your confusion added sincerity to the situation.’

Ray shook his head, and checked in the rear-view mirror. They had turned down a cross street by now, and were some distance away from the warehouse. ‘I’m calling this in, OK?’

‘Of course, Ray.’

‘You intended that, too, didn’t you?’ Which was apparently a rhetorical question. ‘I don’t care if those kids tell everyone about us.’ The cop said grimly, ‘If it comes to that, we’ll deal with it.’

The cop called his lieutenant, and quickly set up a raid. Within the hour, Leo Milan’s gang were surrendering to the police. The first thing Ray Vecchio did once the place was secure was find every camera in that warehouse and rip out the film, exposing it to the light – and no matter who asked, he never explained why.

♦

‘Come upstairs,’ Fraser had said as Ray pulled the Riviera up in front of his apartment building. They had said nothing else to each other since leaving the police station. It had been a long night, but it was now dawn of a fresh day, and Fraser felt quite invigorated.

The cop followed him up to Fraser’s apartment, and nodded when the Mountie offered him coffee. The silence stretched until they were seated either side of the table. Fraser let the steam from his mug of coffee rise into his face, and then sipped at the welcome liquid.

At last Ray spoke. ‘You know, part of me says that Mountie is so damned manipulative, I bet he was setting the whole deal up. I’m half afraid you didn’t mean any of it.’

‘What does the rest of you say, Ray?’

The man sighed. ‘I guess I know you meant what you said. You meant it when you kissed me.’

‘You have enough faith in you to believe in me.’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’ Fraser smiled a little, and met Ray’s gaze. The cop was slouched down in his chair, leaning his head back against the wall as if he couldn’t hold it up, and he had both hands wrapped around his coffee mug. ‘How are you feeling, Ray? Are you tired?’

‘Yeah, I’m tired, but I’ll be all right. I don’t want to go home yet.’

Fraser nodded, and his smile grew. ‘Good.’

Ray was watching him, though it took the cop a moment to realise Fraser’s intentions. He sat up straighter. ‘Oh.’ And then Ray blurted out, ‘First time I did it with a guy was in my uncle’s Riviera, too. Felt like a tradition, you know? So I borrowed it for the evening.’

A moment passed. Fraser said, ‘Are you suggesting that we –?’

The idea apparently deserved a laugh. ‘Oh no, I’m too old for that now. We should do it properly, do it in style. It’s your first time, after all.’

Fraser looked about him at his bare apartment. ‘What do you mean by style?’

‘Yeah, this place is a bit basic, isn’t it? And that bed of yours looks even more uncomfortable than the back seat of the Riv.’

‘I have to admit that I would find it difficult to go to your home, Ray. We would either have to sneak in behind your mother’s back in order to use your room, or explain to her why I’d be staying the night, and I would feel some embarrassment –’

‘No, don’t even joke about it,’ Ray said with a groan. ‘Our first time – I couldn’t, knowing everyone in the house knew. All right, I’ll book us a room at a nice hotel. For tonight. The best – how about the Drake?’ But then Ray looked doubtfully at Fraser. ‘No, that’s not right for us either, is it?’

‘Ray, this doesn’t need to be complicated.’

‘There must be somewhere,’ the cop was continuing. ‘A quaint bed and breakfast upstate somewhere. Small and homey, something like that? Next weekend, we’ll just take off, spend some time together.’

Fraser sat forward, leaning his crossed arms on the table. ‘Ray, all we need do is go over to my bed, right now…’

The man stared at him, apparently almost as scared as he’d been when he thought they were both going to die. ‘It’s your first time. How can this be easy for you?’

‘Of course it’s easy.’

‘No. If it’s so easy, why haven’t you done it before?’

Fraser smiled at him. ‘It’s easy between _us_, Ray. We love each other.’

‘Huh,’ the cop said dryly, ‘it’s easy because you have twenty years of unrequited horniness to make up for.’

‘You’re right about that.’

Ray was abruptly very focussed on his lover, though his eyes soon slid nervously away. ‘God, I don’t think I have the calories to cope with this right now.’

‘This time, we can expend all the calories we want to, Ray. If we need nourishment, the coffee shop down the road will be open all day.’ But it seemed fair to delay this, given Ray’s lack of certainty. ‘Would you like to go there now and have breakfast?’

‘No,’ the man said weakly. ‘Just give me a moment. This isn’t something I can do lightly, you know. Taking someone’s virginity, for God’s sake…’

‘Good,’ said Fraser. He stood, took Ray’s hand in his, and drew the man up.

‘Why am I more nervous than you?’ the cop muttered.

‘Because you are being yourself with me, and I love you for that.’ Fraser eased his arms around the man’s waist. ‘You’re not being the hot-blooded Italian male. You’re not being the cool and clever Chicago cop. You’re being Ray Vecchio.’

A small laugh. ‘Yeah, and that’s a scary thing to be.’

‘I love you, Ray Vecchio,’ Fraser whispered. ‘Now, come to my bed.’ And he kissed the man before leading him across the room.

♦


End file.
